South Dakota Leading The Way For ObamaCare

 This letter was sent to us by a South Dakota Legislator who wishes to “remain anonymous for fear of reprisal from leadership”.

We have heard this report from several sources.  This, friends, is what is going on behind the scenes in the South Dakota State Capitol.

What you see is not really what you are getting!

Behind all the “I am opposed to ObamaCare” rhetoric from the Governor and Legislative leaders, they are steadily moving forward with the Barack Obama version of socialized medicine in South Dakota, and attempting to destroy anyone who DARES to get in their way.  Here is the unedited letter from an informed, concerned and fearful Legislator…..

Governor Daugaard’s campaign promise was to sign any bill repealing ObamaCare that crossed his desk….and he made good on his promise by making sure no such bill crossed his desk this session.

He had several chances to influence those bills by giving “talking points” to legislators to thwart the bills’ passage in committee hearings. Sen. Deb Peters was heard in the halls saying, “I have talking points from (Lt. Governor) Matt Michels to oppose this bill.” “This bill” just happened to be a Health Care Compact bill giving South Dakota the option to join in a compact with other states to opt out of ObamaCare.

Once a majority of states pass such laws, Congressional approval would be sought and granted because no Congressman would vote against the state they represent.

We’ve all been told the Executive branch is against Socialized Health Care. Did you know that in 2007 Gov. Rounds’ administration formed a bill to force all South Dakotans to buy health insurance or face a fine? With Lieutenant Governor Daugaard as the co-chair of the task force, they even talked about putting you in jail if you didn’t buy the amount of healthcare they deemed necessary from you.

Granted, they would need to know ALL your financial assets and information so they could determine how much you would “owe” as your debt to healthcare. Yes, this is the same individual mandate our Attorney General is fighting on the National stage. Can you say ‘schizophrenic’?

 How telling, that former Governor Rounds is now a co-chair with Socialized-Medicine-Man himself…Tom Daschle, at the Bipartisan Policy Center in DC…where they advise Obama on healthcare!

And what about those RomneyCare consultants, Ms. Gillespie and Ms. Handrich? These two ladies who set up Socialized Health Care in Massachusetts were hired to attend our South Dakota task force for the same purpose. Yes, they were at all the meetings and helped write ObamaCare for South Dakota. At least Mitt Romney was open and honest when he set up RomneyCare for Liberal Massachusetts….

but in conservative South Dakota our leaders pretended to be against ObamaCare while setting it deep into Codified law over the last few years.

Sanford CEO told about 400 people at their Research Conference in June that, “Whatever you think about PPACA, sometimes referred to as ObamaCare, we must not repeal it or we will have to go back to the drawing board…” Well GOOD….repeal it like 80% of South Dakotans want!
After Daschle failed to get HillaryCare passed in the 1990’s, he wrote in his book that it failed because they didn’t get the hospitals and insurance stakeholders on board. Voilà! 10 years and $54 Billion in hospital perks later…the hospitals are now on board! And how convenient that hospitals and insurance companies are now rolled into one tax-exempt entity called “managed care”. If they get their way, as a government-subsidized monopoly, they will be “too big to fail” and receive bail outs that smaller private insurers cannot compete with. Don’t you just love it when Government picks winners and losers?

Here are the bills that Governor Daugaard could have encouraged, but instead called on weak-minded legislators to help kill:

– HB 1191, a bill to join with other states in forming a HealthCare Compact, mentioned above.
– HB 1165 and HB1167 to repeal the latest components of ObamaCare that were signed into law last year. They were obediently killed in the House State Affairs committee (known as ‘the killing fields’ for all but the members’ own bills).
– An Amendment to HB1220. HB 1220 is an ineffective suicide clause that was brought as a ruse. It falsely claims that South Dakota’s ObamaCare laws would be repealed in the event that the Federal Law was repealed. The amendment was brought (and ceremoniously killed) that would have insured that would happen. HB1220 was passed but its “suicide” clause is only effective if the ENTIRE Federal ObamaCare law (PPACA) is repealed…and we are not even suing for a complete repeal. The Obama administration has said that if the lawsuit in which our state is a plaintiff prevails, they will just change the wording from “individual mandate” to “individual health tax”….and Daugaard/RomneyCare remains codified in South Dakota law.
– They even killed HB1190, a bill that put the legislature in control of making the ObamaCare Exchange operational in South Dakota. All other states have this authority. An Exchange can either become operational through a legislative vote, by a Governors’ Executive order, or by a Department proclamation.

The people deserve to know when it’s coming on board. But this bill was killed by the same taking points parroted by all the Senators who opposed it in committee. Funny, they all had the exact same comments which they read with beet red faces, stuttering words, sweat on their brows, and complete ignorance of what they were saying. Hmmm…five Senators spontaneously spewing the same convoluted talking points that smelled like Matt Michels (a ‘ big hospital’ kind of guy, since he worked for them)! Ironic that they ALL concluded simultaneously that having legislative control would be redundant because legislators already control initiation of an Exchange (the landing place for ObamaCare)…..when we vote on the huge budget bill. The Budget bill has thousands of items all rolled into a sausage-style bill that is voted on at the end of session.

The appropriators can just stop the whole appropriation process if they happen to see a buzz word in the text that alerts them that an Exchange is being funded. What are the chances that they know the buzz words…like connector, meaningful user (that is their word for your doctor), units (that is their word for patients), and many others? And we have a double protection! Any legislator can peruse the few hundred pages of numbers and note if they spot something that resembles ObamaCare verbiage. Amazing…they all thought of this on their own!
At least 5 of the Senators stayed in Committee and voted….2 walked out because they knew this would be post card material. Only one didn’t drink the Kool-Aid and voted for the people to have representation. I would invite everyone to listen to the testimony of these bills online and give me a call if they are concerned….there is a lot more that will be coming out.

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4 comments for “South Dakota Leading The Way For ObamaCare

  1. Stan Thony
    February 19, 2012 at 3:17 pm

    It is noteworthy that the two prime sponsors of the 2007 bills, Representative Joel Dykstra and Senator Tom Dempster, were members of the Zaniya Project Task Force. Apparently the direct approach of presenting the bills for what they were was far too blatant; both bills went down unanimously in committee. That might explain why the ‘stealth’ approach was used to pass SB38 and SB43 in 2011.
    [Of the 45 task force members; 11 were state government bureaucrats; six were legislators; six were insurance concerns (four of them very large); five were doctors; six were representatives of trade associations (Chamber of Commerce, AARP, FNIB, Assoc. of Medical providers, et al.; five were classified as ’employers’; the balance being clinics and large hospitals (Avera, RC Regional, and Sanford among them). Only one member was listed as a “lay person”. His name is Dan Dryden and he is now a legislator from District 34.]

  2. cares
    February 18, 2012 at 7:37 pm

    Individual mandate? Look at Recommendation #14 http://zaniya.sd.gov/pdf/zaniya_recommendations_draft.pdf
    Daaguard was Chair and had this ready for the Task force members in 2007 when they first met.
    Also look on page 5 of the following link (under Institute a Financial Responsibility Standard pp4-6) where they talked of not wanting to put people in jail for not having insurance http://zaniya.sd.gov/pdf/Unattributed_comments_on_draft_Zaniya.pdf
    Also where Round’s Departments constructed these bills in 2007 HB 1166 for an ObamaCare Exchange:
    http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2007/bills/HB1166p.pdf
    and 2007 SB 131 where they wanted everyone to buy Health Care (what Marty Jackley is fighting now) http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2007/bills/SB131p.pdf

  3. February 18, 2012 at 10:08 am

    I am in agreement with joining the other states that are refusing Obamacare but I wonder why the writer of this letter is anonymous. We need courageous leaders otherwise the other side will feel free to steamroll us. Bobby Jindal is a great leader and setting an example worthy of emulating on several issues. I can’t believe SD is working with Daschle which I see as tantamount to partnering with Obama.

    • Gordon Howie
      February 18, 2012 at 4:21 pm

      Rita, the Legisltive leadership in the Republican Party has been very dedicated to attacking Legislators who dare to disagree with them. This Legislator does speak up and defend our positions but wasn’t up for the assault that would be launched by leadership if they could identify the author… I am very grateful for the heads up and the information provided. We are diligent to verify info, and this is a very credible Legislator presenting accurate information.

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